1 Samuel 22 There is no god like our God!

Transcription

1 1 Samuel 22 There is no god like our God! It was the time of the Judges in Israel, when everyone did what was right in their own eyes. God had revealed Himself to these, His chosen people, in ways that no other nation had ever known. One thousand and twenty years before, God had promised the land we call Palestine to His faithful son Abram, because Abram believed God and his faith was righteous. Within about 230 years however, Abram s children would become slaves to Egyptian Pharaohs and remain in bondage for 430 years, leaving exactly 430 years to the day from the day that Jacob entered the land. Forty years from the time the Hebrew Children left Egypt under Moses leadership, until the Congregation reaches the Land of Promise and Moses dies. Seven years later under the leadership of Joshua the land was theirs for God gave the Israelites the following instruction. Numbers 33: And the LORD spake unto Moses in the plains of Moab by Jordan near Jericho, saying, 51 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye are passed over Jordan into the land of Canaan; 52 Then ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their pictures, and destroy all their molten images, and quite pluck down all their high places: 53 And ye shall dispossess the inhabitants of the land, and dwell therein: for I have given you the land to possess it. 54 And ye shall divide the land by lot for an inheritance among your families: and to the more ye shall give the more inheritance, and to the fewer ye shall give the less inheritance: every man's inheritance shall be in the place where his lot falleth; according to the tribes of your fathers ye shall inherit. 55 But if ye will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you; then it shall come to pass, that those which ye let remain of them shall be pricks in your eyes, and thorns in your sides, and shall vex you in the land wherein ye dwell. 56 Moreover it shall come to pass, that I shall do unto you, as I thought to do unto them. If you do not drive out the inhabitants from the land, they will become not only your enemies, but you will be subject to the same fate that I have planned for them. What is this all about? It is about the judgment of God. God not only uses wicked people to discipline the righteous, He also uses the righteous as His instruments of judgment against the wicked. About 600 years before Joshua lead in the conquest of Canaan, God had given Abram a vision, in which He made the promise of the territory we call Palestine, and more. Over the centuries it has become misunderstood that God s Promise involved land, it was about territory, but in fact the land was only the address. The real Promise was redemption. It was about how God blesses and uses a faithful people to bless the world, literally all the people of the world.

2 God had told Abram as recorded in Genesis 12 that He would become a mighty nation, and that everyone who blessed him, God would bless, and everyone who cursed him, God would curse, and that through his lineage, God would bless the all nations. God promised Abram the land of Palestine, even though it was already occupied by wicked men, and God told Abram, a few years later, in Genesis 15, that his family would be in bondage in a foreign land, and that they would be delivered to return to Canaan and be used as His instruments of judgment against those sinful people. Genesis 15: But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. 17 And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces. 18 In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates: 19 The Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites, 20 And the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Rephaims, 21 And the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites. God did not give Abram and his descendents the territory of Palestine because they needed a place to live, they already had a good home in Mesopotamia. Certainly the territory of Palestine would prove to be strategic and pivotal to God s plan for the eventual spreading of the Gospel and the growth of the Church, and there were wicked people there, people who also knew that Yahweh is the One True God. You have to remember that the evolutionist theory that human civilization is millions and millions of years old, is not correct, and we need to remember that everyone on earth came from the seed of Adam who incidentally died only about 1,000 years before Abram. The population of the world was destroyed in the Great Flood, except for Noah, whose family repopulated the planet with the understanding of the One True God, Noah died a couple of years before Abram was born. So they knew! Jehovah God was in their recent history, and even if they did not specifically know His Name, they understood His Presence and His Deity. Romans 1: For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. 18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; 19 b ecause that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. 20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: 21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

3 The inhabitants of Canaan were in willful, wicked, violation of God s will in their own lives and God would use the Israelites as His instrument of judgment. Only, the Israelites were unfaithful, and they did not drive the inhabitants from the land, instead they were duped into letting many live, and they were slack in removing the idols and objects of worship from the land, in the name of tolerance and hedging. And guess what? Their enemies soon became thorns in their sides and snares in their path. Funny how God s Word always comes to pass! Some time before, some Sea People, left the Island of Crete and attempted to settle in the fertile Nile Delta region of Egypt but were driven out, but were successful in establishing colonies along the Mediterranean coast of Palestine, specifically five city states spread out along the Via Maris, or the International Coastal Highway. These warring people soon controlled most of the seaports along the Mediterranean Sea as well as the land passages and were moving inward. They had been there for some time, as God instructed Moses not to take the main travel routes out of Egypt, but rather to go inland, and avoid the way of the Philistines and subsequent war. By the time of the Judges the Philistines were very powerful, and took advantage of the spiritually weakened state of Judah to enlarge their borders. Sampson married a Philistine woman, and fought against the Philistines, and it was against the Philistines that the Israelites were warring during the early days of Samuels ministry when they lost the Ark of the Covenant. 1 Samuel 4:1-11 And the word of Samuel came to all Israel. Now Israel went out against the Philistines to battle, and pitched beside Ebenezer: and the Philistines pitched in Aphek. 2 And the Philistines put themselves in array against Israel: and when they joined battle, Israel was smitten before the Philistines: and they slew of the army in the field about four thousand men. 3 And when the people were come into the camp, the elders of Israel said, Wherefore hath the LORD smitten us to day before the Philistines? Let us fetch the ark of the covenant of the LORD out of Shiloh unto us, that, when it cometh among us, it may save us out of the hand of our enemies. 4 So the people sent to Shiloh, that they might bring from thence the ark of the covenant of the LORD of hosts, which dwelleth between the cherubims: and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were there with the ark of the covenant of God. 5 And when the ark of the covenant of the LORD came into the camp, all Israel shouted with a great shout, so that the earth rang again. 6 And when the Philistines heard the noise of the shout, they said, What meaneth the noise of this great shout in the camp of the Hebrews? And they understood that the ark of the LORD was come into the camp. 7 And the Philistines were afraid, for they said, God is come into the camp. And they said, Woe unto us! for there hath not been such a thing heretofore. 8 Woe unto us! who shall deliver us out of the hand of these mighty Gods? these are the Gods that smote the Egyptians with all the plagues in the wilderness. 9 Be strong and quit yourselves like men, O ye Philistines, that ye be not servants unto the Hebrews, as they have been to you: quit yourselves like men, and

4 fight. 10 And the Philistines fought, and Israel was smitten, and they fled every man into his tent: and there was a very great slaughter; for there fell of Israel thirty thousand footmen. 11 And the ark of God was taken; and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were slain. We have talked before about how the widow of Phinehas, prematurely giving birth to his son upon learning of his death, prophetically named the boy Ichabod, saying, the Glory of the Lord has departed Israel. Ichabod incidentally is a Hebrew Word meaning, without honor. We know that the Glory of the Lord had departed His People because of their sin, and we know from our study of Isaiah Five, what a nation in sin looks like, and the repercussions of turning away from God in our personal lives as well as our national lives. Today, I want to visit what we can do about it as we look at what happens after the Israelites lose the Ark of the Covenant to the Philistines, and are reminded of the Great Authority of the One True God. 1 Samuel 5:1-2 And the Philistines took the ark of God, and brought it from Ebenezer unto Ashdod. 2 When the Philistines took the ark of God, they brought it into the house of Dagon, and set it by Dagon. Dagon was originally an Assyro-Babylonian fertility god who evolved into a major northwest Semitic god, reportedly of grain (as symbol of fertility) and fish and/or fishing (as symbol of multiplying). It was said that Dagon was the son of El, the big god, and the father of Baal, and was the principal god of the Philistines. When the Israelites had brought the Ark of the Covenant of God into their camp at Ebenezer, they had shouted with fury in their encouragement, not realizing that God was not with them that day because of their sin and compromise. When the Israelites shouted, it struck fear in the Philistines, who vowed then by their god, Dagon, to fight harder and do whatever it took to win the day, and they did, for it was human strength against human strength. Sometimes we get confused when we see people not living for the Lord, not saved or in sin, appearing to be victorious or successful, or wicked military leaders winning battles, or when we see bad things happening to good people. Sometimes we forget that there is a big difference between spiritual battles and natural or human battles. You cannot win spiritual battles with religious symbols or images. Spiritual battles require spiritual warriors or authorities. And, in my opinion, for people who know God in Christ, every battle is a spiritual battle, every decision is a spiritual decision, every issue becomes a spiritual issue. For God s people, spiritual battles involve God, and are won by God, by our faith in God, by our genuine trust and faith in God. Not faith in feelings, not faith in faith, not faith in good thoughts,

5 or even faith in prayer. Prayer does not win battles or change things, God wins battles and changes things, God is engaged in our battles or issues or decisions, through prayer and by faith. And make no mistake, faith and trust in God will be evidenced in obedience and submission to Him in word and in deed. So the Philistines place the Ark of the Covenant, the Holy symbol of Yahweh, given to the Israelites in the desert, in the temple of Dagon, in front of a massive stone statue or idol of this little g god. What happens next is one of the neatest things I know of, and incredible evidence of the sovereignty of God! 1 Samuel 5:3-5 3 And when they of Ashdod arose early on the morrow, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the earth before the ark of the LORD. And they took Dagon, and set him in his place again. 4 And when they arose early on the morrow morning, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the ground before the ark of the LORD; and the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off upon the threshold; only the stump of Dagon was left to him. 5 Therefore neither the priests of Dagon, or any that come into Dagon's house, tread on the threshold of Dagon in Ashdod unto this day. How aggravated they must have been when they came into the temple the following day and saw their stone idol, carved by their own hand, laying prostrate before the Ark of the Covenant of Jehovah, the One True God that they did not recognize as the One True God. Surely some sneaky Jew had crept into the city during the night and toppled the giant statue over. These things had happened before, Sampson had pulled similar stunts on them. So they set him back up, these mere men, righting their god, who had fallen over, and they set a guard at the door. The next day however, not only was the idol prostrate before the Ark of the Covenant again, but this time its head and hands were cut off and lying across the threshold, like maybe they were trying to escape! It reminds me of some Roman soldiers guarding a sealed tomb in Jerusalem some thousand or so years later, sleeping, while inside that tomb a spiritual battle was taking place, and the Son of God, Whom they had slain, would conquer death and hell and walk out of that sealed tomb by the Power of the Mighty Hand of God and by His Love! By the way, the Ark of the Covenant did not exercise strength over the idol of Dagon, rather the God of the Covenant knocked that silly statue over! By His Hand or by His Angel or by His Breath or by His Presence! God is Supreme over all things! Nothing can defeat Him in the Spirit World or in the Natural World. We can resist Him because He gave us free will, but that does not diminish His Power or Authority! Resisting Him does not

6 mean we won, it means we lost! It means there are consequences coming. Which is what happened to the Philistines. God gave them a chance to recognize Him for Who He is and turn from their sin, but they refused. So here come the consequences. (Consequences just sounds better than judgment at the Hand of a Holy God). 1 Samuel 5: But the hand of the LORD was heavy upon them of Ashdod, and he destroyed them, and smote them with emerods, even Ashdod and the coasts thereof. 7 And when the men of Ashdod saw that it was so, they said, The ark of the God of Israel shall not abide with us: for his hand is sore upon us, and upon Dagon our god. 8 They sent therefore and gathered all the lords of the Philistines unto them, and said, What shall we do with the ark of the God of Israel? And they answered, Let the ark of the God of Israel be carried about unto Gath. And they carried the ark of the God of Israel about thither. 9 And it was so, that, after they had carried it about, the hand of the LORD was against the city with a very great destruction: and he smote the men of the city, both small and great, and they had emerods in their secret parts. 10 Therefore they sent the ark of God to Ekron. And it came to pass, as the ark of God came to Ekron, that the Ekronites cried out, saying, They have brought about the ark of the God of Israel to us, to slay us and our people. 11 So they sent and gathered together all the lords of the Philistines, and said, Send away the ark of the God of Israel, and let it go again to his own place, that it slay us not, and our people: for there was a deadly destruction throughout all the city; the hand of God was very heavy there. 12 And the men that died not were smitten with the emerods: and the cry of the city went up to heaven. Isn t it interesting how far people will go in avoiding the obvious. God sent a plague, possibly a combination of Bubonic Plague carried by rats, and hemorrhoids. People were dying and in great pain. And they knew it was from God, but they said, the God of the Israelites. Like, sometimes we are hesitant to embrace a movement of God, or acknowledge a revelation of God because it occurs in the fellowship of another denomination, or country, or even a different city. Please let me say to you that our God, is the God, the One and Only God, He is Lord of this city, He is the King of the Nation, the King above all kings! He is not only universal, He is the Universe itself! And while He gives specific Word to specific situation, His Word is also universal, timeless and true in every situation, every generation, every nation, amen. So they sent the Ark from town to town among the five City States of the Philistines and it got worse and worse everywhere they sent it, so they decided to send it away. And we know that you cannot escape from God! The world will not escape the wrath of God and no one, will escape His Judgment. Where will you spend eternity? In addition to their terror, they were experiencing a glimpse of the Holiness of God. He is Holy and as we said Wednesday, every knee shall bow before Him both in heaven and on earth.

7 After declaring the prophecy of the Lord concerning God s Judgment on the Vineyard in Isaiah Five, Isaiah was lead to qualify his call. Doing so, he described both what happens when sinful man enters the presence of Holy God, and what to do. Isaiah 6:1-9 In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the LORD sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. 2 Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. 3 And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory. 4 And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. 5 Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts. 6 Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar: 7 And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged. 8 Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me. 9 And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. Whether in a vision or otherwise, Isaiah was transported into the Throne Room of God, where he found the worship of the Seraphim, and was struck with terror, for he realized that he was an unholy, unclean man from among an unclean people. Listen we are an unholy, unclean people, the Word says that everyone has sinned and fallen short of God s Glory. Isaiah cried out, woe is me, as he understood his plight. We need to recognize the Glory of God and our unrighteousness and cry out woe is me! Stop trying to do it on your own, stop trying to tough it out! Isaiah could not go it alone and neither can you. The Lord provided symbolic redemption by the touching of Isaiah s tongue with the coal. It burned away the sin, the dross, and cauterized the wound and caused an entirely different reaction in a born again Isaiah as he went from woe is me, to send me! Listen, the redeeming sacrifice of Jesus Christ is not symbolic, it is real! He Who knew no sin, became sin to pay the penalty for your sin, and for mine. At the Cross the Lord Jesus took our sin upon Himself, and bore it into the fires of Hell. There, He proved Himself worthy because of His Own sinless life and His Own righteousness, and overcame death and hell. Our Overcoming King has said that all who will call upon His Name, believing in His Name, placing their faith, hope and trust in Him will be saved, will be redeemed, born again, made whole, made right, sanctified and made clean.

8 The call is for everyone to turn away from their idols, stop running from God, turn only to Christ and be saved. And once saved, to then respond to the Holy Spirit s call, just like Isaiah, with here am I, send me. Send me where? For what? What shall I do? Well, you are to do whatever the Lord has called you to do. First you are to tear down the idols in your life and rid yourself of them, for they are unholy and demonic. An idol is anything that you place above God or instead of God in your life. It could be any number of things. An example of idols today include rebellious attitude, self idolization, or holding to the teachings of anyone or anything contrary to the True Word of God. It could be money, or poverty, or education, or politics, or the pursuit of fleshly desires, alcohol or other drugs. It could be heritage or stubbornness. It could be slothfulness, gluttony, sensuality, even fear can become an idol in a persons life. Anything that you allow to come between you and God. It could be some religious event that happened in your life that you are counting on for salvation, rather than surrendering your heart and soul to Jesus Christ! We are to tear them down, and then live our lives in faithful obedience to the Lord. Tell people about Jesus, show others His love, do what is right at all times, and if we stumble confess our sins and get right back on track as quickly as possible. We are to forgive, and not allow any root of bitterness to take hold. We are to love one another. We are to serve one another, wherever we are or wherever we go. By that we show the world God is real and by that we make a difference. Andy Andrews in his book, The Butterfly Effect, tells about ABC news on April 2, 2004 honoring a 91 year old man named Norman Borlaug. Norman Borlaug was not a household name, in fact you probably have never heard of him, yet Norman is personally responsible for drastically and dramatically changing the world. In the early 1940 s Norman Borlaug hybridalized high yield, drought resistant corn and wheat for dry or arid climates. Borlaug s seeds flourished where other seeds failed in deserts, in drought, in Siberia or Asia, across the entire world. It is said that over the years, Norman Borlaug s seeds saved more than two billion people from famine. But Andrews, says it wasn t Norman Borlaug who saved the two billion people from famine, rather it was a man named Henry Wallace. Wallace was VP under Franklin Roosevelt from While VP, Wallace established a station in Mexico for the sole purpose of hybridizing corn and wheat for arid climates, and he hired Norman Borlaug to run the station. So even though Borlaug won the Nobel Prize and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, it was really Henry Wallace who saved 2 billion people. Or was it George Washington Carver? Carver found many things to do with a peanut, 266 of which we still use today or 88 ways to use a Sweet Potato. So what did Carver have to do with Borlaug s corn and wheat technology?

9 It turns out that when Carver was 19 and a student at Iowa St University, Carver would often take the 6 year old son of his Dairy Sciences Professor on field trips on the weekends and instilled in him a love for plants and a vision for what they could do for humanity. That boy turned out to be Henry Wallace. So ultimately George Washington Carver, influenced Henry Wallace, who influenced Norman Borlaugh, who saved more than 2 billion people from starvation. Or was it ultimately a farmer from Diamond, MO named Moses, who witnessed his farm and livestock destroyed and carried of by Quantrill s Raiders one cold January night. The raiders carried off a black woman named Mary Washington who refused to turn loose of her infant son. Mary was a friend of Moses wife Susan. Susan went to work trying to find where the bandits had taken Mary and her baby boy. Two days later, Susan managed to locate those outlaws and set up a meeting with them, and in the middle of the night, Moses rode four hours away and traded his last horse to two masked me for a half frozen, naked boy in a toe sack. Moses Carver placed the infant inside his shirt for warmth and walked through the night back home where he and Susan would raise the baby as their own and named him George Washington. Because one woman stood by her conviction to save one baby boy, and her husband did what was right by that boy, the lives of billions of people were changed. It was God working in the Carvers that brought about that blessed miracle that cold January night, and it is God Who deeply desires to work in your life and in mine. With Him nothing is impossible. He is a Holy God and has given us Holy Hands and a Holy Calling here among these un-holy people. We need to surrender these hands to Him. I hope you can realize the continuity of the authority of Jehovah throughout the ages, He has not changed! 71 Holy Ground Return to Home Page